Mainstays Multimedia Storage Tower

thinking of ordering another one. i really like how it looks and there's lots of room for any off your media.

I own two of these and am wanting to add a third to act as a small book shelf because it would fit perfectly where other, wider, bookshelves wouldn't. My only gripe, and reason why I gave it 4 stars and 4 stars on 'Features' is because I wish it were a little taller so that I could get 5 shelves of DVDs per unit instead of 4. The way it is now, I can fill up the 4 shelves but have to lay DVDs horizontally on the smaller gaps in order to fit more on the shelf. It's not really that big of a deal, but it would be nice to have all of my films be organized in the same vertical manner. Hence, the 4 stars.

Being particle board and laminate I knew I wasn't going to get a top of the line piece of furniture, but I am pleasantly surprised how sturdy this storage tower is and how decent it looks. I bought this to hold DVDs only, not a mixture of media. This shelving unit is assembled in two pieces, a top and bottom, and is joined by a fixed middle shelf. This means you can not adjust all the shelving throughout the cabinet to suit your needs. I couldn't even insert the final shelf because there was simply no space left. I played around with shelf spacing and had to settle with laying dvds down on the very top and bottom shelves and standing them up properly (how I wanted every dvd to be) on the remaining shelves. If you did say two shelves of dvds, and the rest cds, it would probably work out nicely, but be warned that if you want to store just dvds you are going to cap out around 90 before you've got to start jamming cramming them in there and leaving shelves out.

I had several boxes of paperback books that are difficult to fit into standard book cases, I bought two of these and they worked perfectly with space left over. The shelves are adjustable and I did end up with an extra shelf from each, but with 2 shelves on the top for the smaller sized books and the 3 shelves on the bottom for larger books, I'm a happy camper. They are easy to put together and I used glue on the inserts used to connect the top piece to the bottom piece as others had suggested in their reviews. Helped a lot to stabilize them. The bottom shelf is wider than the rest of the unit, so I put a couple of thick hard cover books under the top shelf when I turned it over to put the backs on. Worked great to keep it level and stable. The back is two pieces that overlap and fit exactly, so you have to pay close attention when you do the nails. Turned out best when I did the top piece first, then the bottom. Both arrived in good condition, hardware is separated in bubble pacs which made it easy to identify what you needed and keep parts together until you need them. Liked that.

If it wasn't more trouble to return since put together, at least as well as it can be, I would return this. A cam dowel broke as I was trying to nail on the back (and I did have it well supported with books on the floor since the bottom has a 3 or 4 inch lip that extends out), and I will say that Sauder sent me two for free. Another one of those became split (the plastic part) during the same stage of construction. I finally decided I had to nail the two back pieces on to the two sections while apart and then put the top into the bottom afterwards. That actually did work with two of us fitting it together. But the construction is poor. The top comes off easily and doesn't sit well and the wood has split, and the same for the top section regarding the stability or lack thereof in the bottom section. I have used many Sauder products and have never had these kinds of issues as I have with this. I think I will be tossing it out next trash day. A waste of my $$ for sure.

I bought two of these media shelves and have only put one together so far. The instructions were fairly easy to follow; I was able to put it together in 30 min. It looks nice, the stain on the wood is quite a bit darker than it is in the picture. I have the shelf on carpet, which causes it to lean a little forward, hopefully when I get it on hard wood it will no longer do this. Something that I found annoying was the spacing of the shelves. I am primarily using this media cabinet to store DVD's, but the way that the manufacturer designed the shelves makes it impossible to put them all uniform. If you are putting the DVD's standing up, you can only get four shelves of them standing up, then there are two shelves built for a CD size. While I can adapt to the CD's being added in, this wasn't the reason why I got it in the first place. Overall a nice product, you get what you pay for.

There are several problems with the design of this unit. One is that to set the height for CD's, two of the rows are too close together for the CD's to stand upright and must lean on an angle, limiting storage space. Another is that the top section essentially sits on top of the bottom section with only four pegs to keep the top from slipping off the bottom. Third, because the base is deeper than the front and back of the tower itself, I had to remove the bottom of the unit in order to nail the back onto the sides of the shelves, and then reattach the base. This design "feature" results in the fact that the back is not attached to the frame at the bottom, and also results in less than optimal stability.

This so-called multimedia storage tower is not what I expected. I had purchased some older models before and they were made much better than this. For one thing, it is made of nothing more than what I assume to be hardened cork and saw dust. The main problem I had with this product was that the sides of the tower itself are not solid like they used to be. It is now in two sections that you have to secure together. This is not an improvement in the design of the product, it is in fact a design flaw. Because of this there is [for lack of better terminology] a load-bearing shelf that can not be adjusted; it is placed permanently in the middle of the tower. This throws off the balance of the product. If you are expecting to get an even number of shelves for your DVDs, VHSs, or CDs you will be disappointed. What would have been a separate shelf is now a shelf divided in half thanks to the non-movable shelf in the midsection. For example, whereas there should be 7 whole shelves of CDs there are instead 6 shelves and 2 half shelves. Or for VHSs and DVDs there should be 5 whole shelves but there are instead 4 whole shelves and 2 half shelves. This tower is made fair-to-average overall.

i bought 2 & MAYBE i would recommend this depending on the needs & budget of a person- CONS: LOOK CAREFULLY at the photos & don't assume anything- the arrangement of the holes DOES NOT allow for all shelves to hold CD's upright- you'll notice top shelf is really cassettes!- another photo has a shelf w/the CD's laying down & piled- that's NOT for artistic photography purposes- the backs of the shelf systems are unexpectedly veneered cardboard which collapse in on the bottom & i had to reinforce them! the "engineered wood" is not what i know this to be- it's just a type of press-board (careful how you handle these- veneered press-board chips very easily on the edges)- i am very good at housey things but assembling was somewhat complicated- WAY more than i expected- the system parts needed immediate airing (for toxic off-gassing) & wipe-down for dust- PROS: they don't look bad once up & filled- (they do look like what they are tho- not at all real wood) they are really compact but still hold A LOT of media- which is why i chose them (originally delighted at the cheap price, but...YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR) i did keep them becasue after searching for the compact/holds a lot combo, this was the closet i could find-

The attachment of the bottom shelf should be done with the same hardware as the top and fixed shelf. Screwing the bottom did not work correctly as the screws went off line and broke through the side of the right upright member. Using the same hardware as the top and fixed shelf would eliminate this problem.